Cold Oblivion
by Sylph of Butts
Summary: When the little golden bird flies and dies, he leaves his mate all alone to suffer. Rated M for gore (suicide), language, and suggestive content (implied rape/molestation).
1. Fly or Fall

Cold.

The floor was cold.

Miku's toes tapped a drum beat on the sterile tiles. The obnoxious turquoise of her nail lacquer somehow made her skin look even more gray. Her lank teal locks dripped down her neck and shoulders like blood. All in one big, tangled mesh. Miku missed her twin pigtails.

Yellowing incisors gnawed on a bleeding-heart-petal lip as she pretended to ponder. The doctor stared at her expectantly while she twitched her toes and bit the inside of her cheek.

He had enough of waiting.

So he asked his question again.

"Miss Hatsune, do you remember what happened that night?" he asked carefully. Hesitantly. And for good reason. Bringing up the incident could be the rock to break her fragile glass mental walls. If the walls shattered, then who was she?

Miku flicked her gaze to him. She briefly opened her mouth into an O shape to speak, then thought better of it and twisted the O into a decidedly unsettling smile.

The doctor shifted and gripped his clipboard.

Examining him through a haze of bristly lowered eyelashes, she spoke.

"I do."

The doctor sighed. He had been hoping the trauma of the incident would erase the memory from her mind. Selective amnesia was not as uncommon as most would think.

"Well," he began. How to phrase this delicately? "Do you know what happened to Mr. Len Kagamine?"

Damn. He hadn't meant to say it so bluntly.

But he got a quicker response this time.

"I do."

"Do you know where he is now?"

"I do."

"Where?"

"Hell."

"Do you really believe in Hell, Miss Hatsune?"

"I do," she said, an octave lower. Her eyes narrowed. Fingers tensed on his clipboard.

"Any particular reason as to why most of your responses consist of 'I do'?" he grumbled under his breath. The doctor honestly didn't mean for her to hear it.

"They say if you use a phrase often enough, it loses all of its meaning. I'm hoping 'I do' will have the same effect," she said, her voice beginning to decrescendo. Internal wince.

"And why is that?"

A savage wolf grin, tongue flicking against her teeth.

"'I do' is what you say when you get married, ain't it? You know, white dress, fancy wine, spend the rest of our lives in each other's heads? Till death do us part," she chuckled. The term 'marriage' felt foreign on her tongue."Whoever coined that line was smarter than he knew."

_She hadn't wanted to go, but Len insisted._

_He said it would be good luck, right before they were joined together as one in the Ceremony._

_"Why not fly one last time, doll?"_

_She tried to refuse, but that lit the spark of anger in him. Golden boy Len was not used to being denied anything. She withered like a dying flower under his gaze. She refused to be a dying flower; Len was a strong believer in out with the old, in with the new. Dying things would not be tolerated. So she went with him._

_Len and Miku used to fly once a week. Len preferred to drink before they flew, as it pleasantly buzzed him enough to where he wouldn't crap himself with fear. Miku didn't want to drink. She wanted to remember every detail of flight with sharp clarity and precision._

_Flying was like drugs. Best thing in the world, especially falling back down to earth. She didn't need drink to fog up those memories for her._

_But Len brought along a crappy six-pack of beer anyway, and they drove out to what Len called the Launch Zone. Where the plane takes off._

_It was a small piece of the cliffs facing the ocean. The cliffs were hundreds of feet above the shoreline below. Len and Miku would launch themselves off of it and hopefully land on the small ledge ten feet below. If you didn't recalculate your trajectory ten times a second you would miss the ledge and plummet to the earth below._

_Miku couldn't understand why Len drank. She couldn't imagine flying off the Launch Zone with half of her wits; then again, Miku spent most of her life as an over-cautious worrywart anyway. Hadn't she started dating daredevil Len to get over that paranoia?_

_But Len allowed himself to get pleasantly buzzed ten minutes before_

_Liftoff that night. The two drive the truck five miles off road through the trees before reaching the cliffs. They would sit at the cliff side, skinny legs dangling off the edge, swapping stories while Len downed beer after beer after beer. Then he would stand up with the idiotic grin on his face, clap his hands together like that alchemist he looked so much like, and fling himself off the cliff, flying or falling or flailing. He always landed on the ledge. Then it was Miku's turn._

_But tonight, she laid her hand on his arm and offered to go first._

_"It's our last time to fly, Len. I want tonight to be special. I don't need you there to catch me at the bottom."_

_He laughed like a fool and agreed. Miku hiked up her already too-short skirt and backed up ten feet. Inhale, exhale. Then run. Run at the cliff like you're being chased. Run at the cliff like you're flying, not falling._

_Toes push off. Muscles are coiled. Arms spread like wings. Air rushed around your face, whipping your hair like it's caught in a blender. The sky on the horizon is so beautiful._

_Land on the ledge. Knees pop from the strain. Wince. Brush dust from her eyes and straighten your hair._

_Then the rush is gone and she looks up at Len expectantly. He still has that stupid grin on his face. He steps back a few paces and runs at the cliff. Jumps off. Then he's flying._

_No, not flying. Falling._

_Len took off wrong. His trajectory is screwed up. He's flipping end over end over end and his face stays frozen in that smiling mask while terror rages in his eyes._

_"Miku! Miku, Miku, Miku! I'm flying, doll! Really flying!" A cackle of laughter, brief like static._

_Then his head hits the side of the cliff. Crack, like an eggshell smashed against the side of a bowl. Blood and bits of gore spatter the walls and arc across the sky, but he's still smiling._

_Your throat is frozen like his smiling face. You are so scared so scared so scared, but you can't scream. The noise curls up in your lungs to the point of suffocating you, but it refuses to escape._

_Len's head hits another rock as he falls. This one spears him through the eye, widening the home that is his eye socket. You think you see a bit of brain, or maybe an eye, get snagged on a piece of moss that clings to the cliffside._

_Bile erupts in your throat and seeps down your chin, but still the scream is caught._

_Finally his neck is speared on a stone at the bottom of the cliff. He reached the bottom, alright. He landed after flying. He flew further than any of you, past the ledge past the cliff past the ground past life and straight into death._

_A chuckle-sob reaches your lips. How ironic; Len hated old things. Didn't like visiting nursery homes. Said he never wanted to be 'dying' like them. And it turns out, Len was never 'dying'. He went straight from full of life and alcohol and the rush of flying, to missing part of his skull and eye and trachea, most certainly very very dead._

_The scream finally leaves your lips. He's dead, you know. Isn't it amazing how in one moment, one gunshot, one rock spearing your brain, all of your hopes, dreams, fears, futures, LOVES, and everything else you ever were can be snuffed out like a candle? Here one second, gone the next. You hope he didn't suffer._

_Rot in hell, Len Kagamine._


	2. Embrace It

**Ahaha welcome to Sylphie's second story! This one is significantly darker than Suburbia's Favorite Psychopaths and yeah. I'm not sure entirely where I want this fic to go, although I have a pretty good idea. Insane Miku and Sadist Len are two of my absolute loves, although my Favorite Absolute Love arrives in Chapter 3. 8D Yeah.**

**This chapter explains more of Miku's past and her and Len's romantic history. It also unveils two twists to the story that I think totally take this fic into a one-eighty. If you think you know what the two twists are, feel free to PM me or leave a review! I'll probably post the two twists next chapter anyway. Of course, if the two twists I post are not the twists you spot, feel free to share your twists and we can combine them into one epic Plot Pretzel.**

**Danke as always for reading!**

The doctor cleared his throat, snapping Miku out of her flashback.

"He's dead, Miku," the poor man mumbled.

"You think I don't know that?" Miku snapped. Her toes curled like cashews. "I saw him die, stupid. I saw his damn innards fly like fireworks. At least he died with a smile on his stupid face."

Those suicidal clowns without a doubt,

haven't got makeup on, their true face faces out.

Ugh. Shivers.

"Can you explain to me why you have an aversion to the phrase 'I do'? Or is there some big clue I'm missing that is staring me straight in the face?" He laughs good-naturedly now. Part of Miku didn't want to tell him. Didn't want to ruin his innocent perspective of the world.

And the other part of her wanted to crush that perspective. So fragile, like Len's damn skull -

"Me and Len, we was gonna get married, in a way," she sighed. Your damn country twang merges into your voice when you're upset.

"Miss Hatsune, both of you were only sixteen. You know that's illegal, don't you?" He's being patronizing. You hate when grown-ups do that. Yep, time to crush that naïve worldview.

"Didn't I say we were gonna get married 'in a way'? Family custom lets you do a lot of weird stuff," you smirk. Weird stuff indeed.

The doctor pursed his lips. He had been informed of Miku's family's odd beliefs, but he hadn't imagined allowing people to get married and have babies when they were still babies themselves.

Miku closed her weary eyes and allowed the memories to wash over her like a tidal wave. The Hatsunes and the Kagamines were both old money families and twined together tighter than rose vines. Miku and Rin had grown up together. Miku remembered going over to visit Rin and eating orange sherbet and pestering Rin's older sister Lily, who married a Masuda at the age of sixteen. Miku remembered how Rin spoke of her big sister with such awe, and how lucky Lily's marriage was, as if securing a Masuda was like securing a Maserati.

Miku giggled at the mention of marriage and kissing and BOYS like every other girl. Rin was so silly, but she was also funny and sweet and kind. Miku used to love going over to Rinny's house.

Until the Christmas of Miku's eleventh year.

It was a long night of celebration. Lots of singing and dancing and food and alcohol. Lots of drunk men. Drunk men with flushed faces and eyes that gleamed with lust and small, dark places and -

That train of thought crashed. Miku drew in a raspy breath. The other girls told her she was just overreacting, that Kaito did that to other girls all the time and that Miku should be proud that she was finally a woman.

The first cut is the deepest. After that it numbs to nothing.

She and Len were matched to be married several years thereafter. Miku knew she should have been bothered, but secretly she was so relieved her arranged marriage was to her childhood friend's brother and not some creepy man nine years older than her that she went right along with it. Len and Miku began hanging out more. Just because the arranged marriage was an archaic custom between their two families didn't mean they couldn't chill like normal friends, right?

Len was quite popular at their school. Very handsome and athletic, good grades. Classic all-American golden boy. Miku was proud to 'date' him for a while.

Until she discovered his penchant for alcohol and flying.

When Len drank, he became abusive and controlling. He would slap her across the face in front of his leering buddies and would look down her shirt in front of her parents. The other women told her to just take it. It meant she was a woman now.

Eventually Len began to really want her in THAT way. Miku was terrified, but no one refused the golden boy anything. Especially not her.

Then, the day they were scheduled to be joined together in the Ceremony, Len knocked his own brains out. Flashback over.

Miku's past begins to bubble out of her like hot water from a spring as she begins to describe the abuse. The pain and fear and fake love and wandering hands and it's okay Miku embrace it it means you're a woman and -

Then the words cannot flow. Miku has run out of words.

The screams from the day Len died emerge from her throat. Miku hollers and shrieks and cries, hot tears run down her face and she beats against the linoleum floor and curses. Curses Len and Kaito and alcohol and flying and every other damn thing that's ever happened. She wants to die JUST LET HER DIE.

The doctor watches all of this with a blank expression, tears pooling in his eyes. There's a lump of clay in his throat. Quivering fingers reach down and pat the sobbing mess of a girl on her protruding shoulder blade.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ME," she yells.

The doctor sighs and stands up, activating a small intercom device in his jacket.

"The psychological analysis of the patient is complete. Bring in Mr. Honne."


	3. Soap and Cigarettes

**FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY DELL IS INTRODUCED. Hi, guys, this is Sylphie again. Welcome to Chapter 3 of Cold Oblivion! Here is where we meet Dell the therapist (best title for him obviously). I want to thank all of my viewers and reviewers and you too Storm. Uh. This chapter will be a bit short because I wanted it to end on a cliffhanger, so, watch out for that. I really like how mean and abrasive Dell is and the wonderful dynamic he shares with Miku. But. I'm weird so. oAo**

As soon as Mr. Honne entered he knew he was in for a hell of a ride.

The room was like a sterile cell, all white walls and cold tile and two single plastic chairs. He knew one chair was reserved for him. The other belonged to the sobbing teal puddle convulsing on the ground.

"For God's sake, get up," he grumbled. The girl eyed him reproachfully, fingers curling into talons.

"Who are you?" she asks, voice hoarse from crying. She took a deep shuddering breath, her throat aching like it had been clawed up by cats.

"Doesn't matter," he mutters. He sits slumped in the chair as he lights a cigarette. He has a smoker's raspy voice, but it was satisfying, like you had an itch in your ear and his voice could scratch it. He smelled of Irish Spring soap and smoke.

Red eyes meet teal.

"So, you gonna stop throwing a temper tantrum or what?"

"My boyfriend is dead. DEAD, you heartless bas-"

"I know that," he interrupts. "And you can scream and cry and cuss later, but for now, we have work to do."

Miku's vision begins to tunnel. Everything becomes gray and fuzzy as one thought echoes in her head. _You killed him, you killed him. He shouldn't have been drinking, you could have stopped him, you could have reached out to catch him. Even if he dragged you down with him pay life and into death you would be peacefully dead, instead of rotting in this sterile cell. _

Despite everything, Miku still loved Len. Maybe. The emotion was a bit blurred, but it was the only thing left in this world.

Deep exhale. "Kid, don't blame yourself. It was a suicide."

Miku stays frozen, but her eyes widen in shock. Disbelief.

"His parents found the note. The family does not blame you for anything. Hell, they doesn't even know you were there."

"Then why are you interrogating me?" she hisses.

"This is an inquiry as to your mental state, not an interrogation," he explains.

"Whatever," she huffs. "Why haven't I gone home yet?"

Stupid brat. Why did she have to ask that, of all things?

Dell lies.

"Your family wants a clean bill of mental health before your release."

Oh. Dell sees relief in her eyes.

"My turn to ask questions," he says with a somewhat threatening grin.

"Tell me about Len."

"Why don't you go ask him?"

"Well, I would, but he's kind of in pieces."

She yowls like a mad cat and lunges for him, fingers extended to jab into his eyes. Dell grabs her arm and whips her around, yanking her into submission. Both arms are pinned behind her back as she writhes on the ground.

"Naughty, naughty. If not for that little outburst you would be out of here sooner. Unfortunately I'll have to log that into your record," he informs her with a sadistic glee. What did the idiot think she was doing, attacking a professional?

Of course, there was the likely possibility that she wasn't thinking at all.

"Screw you."

Miku spits on his well-worn shoe. Dell swears and flings the girl back in her seat.

"Listen, you damn psycho. I don't care who you are or what you did. Your parents want you out of here, so you're going to get out of here. The independent variable is how long you have to wait to get out of here. And right now, darling, your chance aren't looking so hot."

Miku's gaze is focused on the ground like an impudent child. She grips the chair and swings her legs back and forth.

"I hate you."

"I don't care."

...

"I want my lawyer. You have no right to fling me around like a freaking rag doll. Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"I said this was a mental health assessment, not an interrogation. No lawyers here. And second, I'm your therapist. We're going to have lots of good times together the next few months."

Her shriek is loud enough to make the dead walk.

"Believe me, I'm as thrilled as you are."


	4. Emotional Catalyst

As soon as Mr. Honne leaves, Miku clambers from her chair to the tile floor again. She's become sort of acclimated to the chill. She curls into the fetal position and lies there for several moments, not blinking or breathing or moving. If she stays still enough while the rest of the world moves around her, will she be erased, left behind in time?

Miku stays in that position for a long time. Her joints begin to ache after so long on the floor. At long last, she hears the creaky hinges of the door whining as the door swung open.

"Miss Hatsune, are you alright?"

She replies with a noncommittal grunt.

"It's time to go to your room, Miss Hatsune. Please get up so we may escort you," the tech says nervously.

Miku snorts. Poor techie, having to babysit the crazy girl.

The tech snaps her fingers and heavy footsteps pound behind her. Miku was soon being dragged away by a large, hairy pair of arms. She cracks her eyelids to find herself sliding across the floor thanks to a big, muscle-y guard. _No, Miku don't play that way._

"Fine, I'll get up," she grumbles in an eerily Dell-like fashion. Her knees were sore after so long on the floor, drowning in loneliness.

The smiling tech places her hand on Miku's surprisingly bony shoulder and steers her back towards her chambers. Miku lurches and stumbles more often than she walks; each step was a huge effort.

"And here we are," exclaims the tech. She's way more cheery and confident now that she has guards for backup, Miku thought with a wry smile.

She clambers into the uncomfortable hospital bed, settling between cool sheets. As soon as the tech and guards close the door and lock it, Miku falls into a deep and dreamless stupor.

"Good MORNING, sunshine!" trills an irritating voice. Miku growls under her breath and sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

It was another stupid tech; this one has curly pink hair pulled into two pigtails, which Miku notices are shaped like drills, oddly enough.

She rushes into the room. "Hello, I'm Teto Kasane, and I'm your nurse!" bubbles the enthusiastic girl. Miku groans internally. You've got to be kidding.

Teto cheerfully takes Miku through her morning routine while emanating sunshine and smiles the entire time. Miku finds herself smiling a bit as well; curse this happy nurse and her contagious, persistent cheer.

So it was quite a shock when Miku was brought back to her seat in the therapy room, freshly showered and dressed, to find The Rain Cloud himself.

Mr. Honne sits slumped in his chair. His blank expression immediately goes south when he spots Miku walking with the nurse, Teto.

"You're late," he grouches as Teto sits Miku in her chair.

"I'm sorry, sir, wake-up took a bit longer than I expected," Teto says somewhat apologetically, running a hand through her untamable curls.

Miku huffs. Yeah, blame it on me, why don't you?

"Whatever. Let's get started, Hatsune," he says dismissively, waving Teto away. Right as Teto closes the door behind her, he turns to face Miku with an unreadable expression.

"Trust you slept well," he mumbles.

"As well as you can in a cell."

"Then let's begin."

Three hours later, Miku felt bored and emotionally drained. Psychologists were exhausting; they didn't hesitate to thoroughly pick your brain and ask you how you FELT about everything, even though Miku sensed Mr. Honne didn't really care.

"So, why are you a psychiatrist?" she asks casually, picking at her nails.

He looks up from writing on his clipboard. "Why do you ask?"

"It's not polite to answer a question with a question."

"It's also not polite to claw out my freaking eyes, yet you managed to attempt it at our first meeting," he sneers. Continues writing notes on that stupid clipboard.

Miku quells the urge to smack that clipboard right out of his mitts and instead tries a different tactic. "I just don't get it. Psychiatrists are supposed to help. You're not the healing, you're the pain."

Dell glared up at her with a new ferocity. "They figured I could relate to the patients with trauma a bit more. I'm not doing this therapy thing for your poor sick souls, I'm doing this for her. You say I'm the pain? You have no idea."

Miku was dumbfounded for a second. First of all, that was probably the most words she'd heard him string together in one breath. Second, the compulsory question. Who was 'she'?

Miku would regret her next paragraph.

"Look, I don't know who 'she' is, but I'm guessing it was your long lost lover or whatever, and you might be all prickly about it because as far as I can tell you're prickly about EVERYTHING, but don't talk down to me like I have no idea what you're experiencing. I watched my boyfriend fling himself on a cliff and shish-ke-bab himself three times. I bet his eye is still there where the rock split his eye socket in half. So don't treat me like I'm four, like some naïve little kid who has no idea how the world works. I do, I really do." To her horror, Miku finds she is crying, again, in front of this man. What is it about him that makes her emotions skyrocket? She was always good at keeping stoic before. She didn't even scream when she saw her boyfriend die, but she can scream at this man as easily as she can open a can of tuna. He was like a catalyst for emotional reactions, a key to the darkest parts of her soul that brought them into light.

When he speaks, she sees with shock that he's taking deep, shuddering breaths, hands clenching his knees, head bowed. He looks almost ashamed.

Until she is confronted with the fire in his crimson irises.

"People are nothing but the sum of their memories," he hisses with barely restrained rage. "Judging by how you act, all those 'horrible' things to happen to you have had no effect at all, not making you humbler or more sensitive or better. You're just a silly spoiled rich girl who doesn't know anything. Maybe you'll find some answers. If not, I look forward to seeing you speared on the nearest cliff, you stupid selfish whore."

They end up jabbing a needle into her skin filled with a numbing drug just to haul her off of him.


	5. A Pal in the Psych Ward

"Violent tendencies, unprovoked aggression, disrespect for authority, antisocial tendencies, unusual self-centeredness and narcissism. All signs point to a personality disorder, sir," Dell informed his superior. He watched the morbidly obese and decidedly unpleasant man shift in his chair and pinch the bridge of his nose in thought.

Mr. Harris grunted. "All are common aspects of human behavior. You need to be a bit more specific, Honne."

Dell cast his boss a baleful glare. "Are you saying I don't know how to do my job, sir?"

Harris huffed. Dell sensed the bull was about to charge.

"I'm saying that the girl might be ill, she might not. Were it not for her parents checking her into the hospital to check for emotional damage, she might not have even shown symptoms," Harris said.

Like hell she wouldn't. The girl was a freaking attack dog.

"So, in summary, she started going crazy when she was admitted into the hospital, not before."

"Don't twist my words. It's happened before, as a mental hospital is not exactly the most peaceful environment. Furthermore, you're not providing much help when it comes to assisting Miss Hatsune in her fragile state, which is part of your job description." Harris cast him a greasy smirk.

Dell blanched. Did Superior know about Hatsune's unwarranted hatred of her dear therapist?

"She's going to get out of here whether she likes it or not, and preferably as quick as possible. I don't need more attacks on my staff,

even though she only seems to be violent towards you. I wonder why?" Harris mused.

"She'll escape this nut house. I swear it." Dell hissed through gritted teeth.

"Good. You're dismissed."

As Dell stood to leave, Superior tossed one last parting remark at him.

"The girl will ruin our reputation. If steps are not taken to correct her behavior, be it a mental condition or not, steps will have to be taken. If you fail, your angry little ship will burn. Is that clear?"

...

"Crystal."

Dell slammed the rickety door behind him.

Miku was escorted to the barren room with the cool floor and especially uncomfortable plastic chairs for her third day of therapy at eleven o' clock, sharp. Therapy was the only definitive time of the day, Miku learned. Lunch times were always shifting, shower times were a bit blurred. But all of her fellow inmates, er, patients, knew what time their therapy session was for the day.

Miku spent approximately one hour amongst her fellow crazies before she decided they were worthless company. The ones who were 'stable' and 'docile' enough to socialize with the others usually were too drugged up to form coherent sentences. They mostly just wandered the halls in a daze, aimlessly migrating to the cafeteria when mealtimes came.

So when Miku chose to eat her first meal in the drab lunchroom, something told her it would be her last.

Maybe it was the drab gray walls or the filthy floor tiles. Maybe it was the bland food, or the shells of people drifting about the cafeteria without really settling anywhere.

Or maybe it was the weird girl who had chosen to sit with her.

The girl slapped her tray on the table with a clatter and angrily stuffed a French fry in her mouth. She was short and stick-like, with pasty skin and a mass of long thick golden hair pulled into a ponytail. Said ponytail was on the side of her head, like whoever had styled the ponytail had been too lazy to properly center it.

"Hey, I'm sitting with you today," the girl murmured as she glared across the cafeteria. Miku 's outrage flared. Who did this chick think she was, plopping down her tray and taking a seat in Miku's territory like she was so important?

"You could at least tell me your name, new friend," Miku spat. A normal person would have scooted away from Miku when they heard the venom in her voice. This girl had no such luck.

"Neru. Neru Akita."

Neru proceeded to ignore Miku for the next fifteen minutes until the teal-headed freak decided she'd had enough of group dining. As she stood up to throw her half-eaten food with the rest of the garbage, Neru lashed out and grabbed Miku's arm, causing her to jump.

"What?" she hissed.

"Please, don't leave," Neru implored, staring at Miku with weird yellow cat-eyes.

"Why? We don't even talk; we just ignore each other. You don't need me. "

"The monitors will only let me eat group lunch if it looks like I'm making an attempt at friendship with my fellow miserable cretins."

Miku sighed in a resigned fashion and sat back down. "Okay, so, why eat group lunch if you don't have any friends?"

"No one has friends in this place, dear. But they are fascinating to watch, aren't they? Like observing animals on Safari. The hopeless psych-ward-dweller in its natural habitat." A bit of awe crept into Neru's voice.

"Who's fascinating?"

"The other patients, duh."

"You do realize you count in the 'they', right? And so do I."

Neru let out a giggle that came out as more of a cackle. "No you're not. You see, my fine circus-hued friend, there are the real mental patients, aka the mindless lumps that go through the motions in this place, and then there are the people like you and I, who have emotions and a drive to live somewhere other than this box! But, before I make my escape, I like to watch the other pitiful souls without hope. It spurs me on to do something with my life once I get out of here, and it's fun to watch them run into walls."

"What distinguishes me from the mindless lumps?" Miku wondered.

"Well, for one, you made a stab at conversation, meaning that you speak and emote like a normal human being. Number two, everyone who can think knows about your little spat with the good Doctor Honne." Neru's girlish grin took on a sardonic edge.

Internal groan. Did all of the crazies really know about that?

"My point is, if you fight with a doctor or other official, it shows you've got that spark. You're not lying down and accepting your insanity yet. After all, you can't continue to fight after you have already surrendered, no?"

Miku had to admit, Neru had a point.

"So what are you asking me to do?" she asked cautiously.

"I need a friend to get my supervisors off my back, and from the looks of it, you could use an ally as well, Miss Lonesome Dove."

"I prefer the term aloof," Miku sniffed.

"Yeah, well, I don't. Catch you later, Ice Princess?" Neru said with a wink.

And just like that, she zipped off to dump her tray.

Miku needed a nap and an aspirin.


	6. In Your Head

Dell knew tonight was gonna be one of those nights.

Those nights that snuck up on him and struck like a snake, leaving him in a state of dull paralysis and terror.

These type of nights required some Madeleine Peyroux and rancid vodka that tasted like hate and burned all the way down. He'd curse and moan and drown in self-pity until he got his chin above water. That usually happened in the morning, with a terrible hangover that could chase guilty thoughts away.

Tonight, Dell sat alone in his apartment. The carpets were in need of deep cleaning, the walls were chipped and peeling, and the kitchen was layered with various pleasantries such as greasy spoons and bowls crusted with dried oatmeal. Dell wasn't much of a clean-freak.

Dell nursed his bottle of vodka as he stared blankly into space, a rather common habit of his whenever he went deep into thought. She would always laugh whenever she saw him do that; said he was so focused on something that his soul would vanish from his body and float amongst the constellations of his thoughts, or some cheesy shit like that.

She may not remember, but he remembered. He remembered how her hair always glowed brilliant yellow (not golden or flaxen or whatever the hell colors poetic twits used to describe blonde chicks). Her eyes were the same color. The only eyes he'd ever seen that glowed in the dark and pierced him like fire.

Neru Akita. God.

He thought about her all the damn time.

Back when he was a stupid college kid, getting high and piss-drunk and picking up chicks for fun. When she was the geeky little high-school sister of his friend Lily. She was awkward and stick-like, with bizarre glowing irises that burned into him like lasers.

He had sworn to himself he wouldn't date a sixteen-year-old girl, even though she was like a magnet to the darkest parts of his soul. She attracted his brooding, his hate, his lust. They started hanging out. She was a firecracker, a meteor, titanium. No snide remarks or violent outbursts could phase her. Tough as nails, smart as a fox. Tiny and lithe and always, always, always able to wrestle him to the ground. The first time they 'did it', as she would say with an immature giggle, it was like he wouldn't just move on once he had gotten what he wanted. Something besides lust told him to stick around Neru.

They began impromptu dating. She'd take him to truly awful hipster hangouts; he offered to take her to topless bars, which she always refused with a punch to his arm. He developed a lot of bruises the summer he met Neru Akita.

But he never developed scars. If she could bounce back from anything, so could he. Each of them always had to be the best, the first, constantly one-upping each other. Soon, their asshole friends dropped them; it was almost impossible to be around the gold and silver couple. They were so self-absorbed and competitive.

Dell didn't need other friends. He had Neru. They were perfectly matched in militant anger and rebellion and passion. He wondered if they would grow old together.

That night, Dell had been driving to take Neru to her favorite restaurant, a crappy little pizza joint in the armpit of downtown. She had whipped out her old Cranberries CD and blasted Zombie as loud as it would go. And Dell would listen to O'Riordan's endless chants of "In your head, in your head," while he watched tears blur her fire-eyes.

He was so astonished at seeing Neru tear up for the first time that he lost control of the steering wheel. She turned toward him, horror etched in the familiar lines on her face. All he could see was the tears cutting glistening tracks in her cheeks as the eighteen-wheeler sideswept Dell's little Acura. Something pushed into his spine and bent him like a spoon as shadows writhed in front of his eyes. Dell thought about screaming, but his throat couldn't seem to work. Shadows swallowed his vision as he heard Neru's agonized cry.

When Dell regained consciousness, he was sitting in a hospital bed with a fractured vertebrae and two slipped disks from the impact of the eighteen-wheeler smashing his poor car into a light pole. Said light pole was the force he felt pushed into his back. The eighteen wheeler had smashed the door into Neru's head. The doctors said she had some head trauma, but she was alive.

Dell watched silently as they spat this information at him. His mind wandered amongst the constellations as his eyes glazed over.

Neru. Neru. Neru.

"I want to see her," Dell croaked.

The doctors bit their lips and glanced at each other. "Sure, Mr. Honne," one mumbled. "She'll be happy to see you, although we did mention there was a bit of trauma. She may not be the same Ms. Akita you always knew."

Who cared? He wanted to see his... Lover? Girlfriend? Life source?

They transported him to her chambers in a wheelchair, his hands tightly gripping the armrests in anticipation. What kind of trauma could possibly make the doctors hesitant to let Dell speak with the most important person in his miserable existence?

He sat by her bedside as she stared out the window. "Hey, brat," he snorted, waiting for her eyes to light up and her eyebrows to flicker the way they always did when he was trying to get her attention.

Her eyebrows did flicker, but in annoyance. Her eyes showed no tough love. They were empty, devoid of fire. Instead of burning coals they were lumps of ash.

Her next words still chilled him to the bone to this day.

"Who are you? And why did you call me a brat, freak?"

It took a minute for him to process before Dell's stomach sank to his knees. So this was why they hadn't wanted him to see her. They neglected to mention Neru wouldn't fucking remember him.

"Neru," he whispered.

She ignored him, crossing her arms and staring fixatedly outside the window, refusing to look at him.

Dell's heart was cracked, and a flood of memories spilled out. Memories of playful wrestling and buying ice cream downtown and making fun of televised wrestling. Of sweet, tender touches and wildly passionate kisses. Of feeling more alive than he ever had, like a burning asteroid racing through space.

But all asteroids burn out.

He remembered how he had pushed his family, his friends, everyone out of the private bubble that was Neru and Dell. They only provided for themselves and cared not for the sufferings of others. Now, with Neru's amnesia, he would be the only one to remember. He would have to keep the torch burning. But what would happen if the memories left him too? Would there be no one left to remember the crazy young love that he had experienced, the greatest thing to ever happen to him?

As Dell pondered, Neru took a break from her staring to notice his blank expression.

"Hey, are you okay? Your face is all expressionless, like you're a million miles away. Are you up in the clouds, weird silver man?"

Dell smiled at her, this blank slate of a girl who had no experience with life or loyalty or the greatest love, that while it may not have been the greatest love to her it certainly was to him.

Dell and Neru was gone in a single fatal sideswipe, and all that remained was a blank slate girl and a cracked heart with burning memories gushing out every second.

Dell cried that day. Just placed his head in his hands and wept in front of this wonderful void girl who at once meant nothing and everything to him.

Dell grit his teeth as more memories gushed like blood from a head wound. Most days he could deal with the torture, but today he found his old love who knew nothing of the love they shared, conversing with the stupid teal bitch who just had to waltz in and ruin everything, crying and sobbing about lost lustful love. He envied her, envied that she could deal with her emotions so _easily_, in front of so many witnesses.

Dell hated her from the second she looked at him. He hated her eyes; they had a dull teal look. Not sparkly or glowing at all. Not like hers. They had that opaque sheen that looked like they refracted light, not reflected it. She was quiet and reserved and acted so damn above it all. Nothing like Neru, who usually wouldn't shut up. They were such total opposites, yet Miku had the nerve to act like she wasn't crazy, like she wasn't supposed to be in a psych ward with all of these freaks.

Neru wasn't supposed to, either. The accident had given her more head trauma than amnesia. She became sullen and antisocial. So, they booked her into a nearby mental hospital, to monitor her responses with humans. Dell had switched his major from computer sciences to psychology. Add a few hard years of university, and Dell managed to acquire his Psy.D. in five years, seeing as he had begun his college prerequisites in his last two years of high school. For five years he waited, watching Neru from afar. Five years he pushed everyone away. Five years he gave up messing around with computers and having friends and a life. He was twenty-eight years old, and he had thrown everything away that he had except for a doctorate in something he couldn't give a shit about and a girl that glowed. Everything.

Neru didn't remember him, but he knew she would have wanted him to keep her safe. Always. That was his job. And that included becoming a clinical psychologist and working at the same nut house she lived at for five years. He was her therapist, listening to every insignificant scuffle with an inmate or how awful her breakfast was. She was so classic Neru, but not. They met every afternoon at 5:45. And every day for an hour he asked her about her waste of a life and how she felt about everything and all he wanted to do was tilt his head back heavenward and scream, "Doesn't anyone care what I think?"

Yes. Tonight would definitely be one of those nights.


	7. And Everything Will Be Okay

Miku grew accustomed to the dull monotony of insane asylum life. The other patients were as boring as ever, for most had been drugged into be docile and lethargic, like animals. The more unstable ones were kept in practically airtight cells 'round the clock. Miku was lucky; her psychological 'problems' involved more self-harm than other people-harm, so they didn't watch her too closely to see if she would attack the other crazies.

The meals were plain, the hospital gowns itchy, and the stale chill permeated every wall, every room, every breath of air. There really wasn't much to do besides eat, shower, and socialize with Neru.

She had been annoying and weird at first, but Neru grew on Miku like mold. She was bright and animated, and Miku kind of enjoyed her hanging around. The two spent most of their time together, but for Miku, it was more out of necessity, like when everyone else in the class has a partner so you end up teaming with the other person just to avoid looking like a loser.

Even Dell became tolerable. Miku learned that when dealing with her therapist, offense was the best defense and acting sullen and hostile was the best way to avoid getting weepy whenever he went too far. Neru was his patient too, and oddly enough, his therapy sessions with her were the polar opposites of his with Miku. He never looked at the blonde girl in anger, only a weird, mourning look. And when he came to fetch Neru for their therapy session, he always put his hand between her shoulder blades and gently steered her to the therapy room, though Neru had been to therapy in that room every day for five years and could walk to it in her sleep. She never went a day without reminding him of that, either. And strangest of all, they seemed to be friends. More than once, Miku caught Neru sneaking off to his office in the ungodly hours.

They definitely had a weird dynamic. Miku thought about asking Neru about it, but it would just be awkward. Miku didn't care if they were in some weird sexual thing, she told herself.

Despite that, Neru was pretty cool to hang around. She liked to talk about weird things like fish and mythological worlds and nineteenth-century fashion. Despite the five-year age difference between the two girls, they had a lot in common.

Miku and Neru were sitting in one of the 'quiet places' of the asylum. Neru was teaching Miku how to draw. Neru was decent at art, but all of Miku's people looked like parking meters with tufts of hair. Eventually she gave up and was content to watch Neru draw.

Her calloused hands danced around the paper' making deep marks and gentle curves. Maybe, when she gets out of here she can go into art, Miku thought.

Teto came by at the usual time to get Neru for her usual session. Smiling, the pink nurse dragged the blonde out of the room. Miku had just enough time to wave at Neru before the door slammed shut. What was the hurry?, Miku wondered.

She sat in silence for a few minutes, doodling puppies and parking meters absentmindedly until a horrid shriek pierced the silence. Screams were rather common inside the asylum, but this wasn't one of the usual ones of panic and confusion. This was a scream of agony. A familiar-pitched scream.

Miku abandoned her parking meter-people to see what was up. She yanked open the door to find Neru in the hallway, yelling at nothing and pacing like a cornered animal. Miku saw a nurse laying a patient with a bloody nose on a gurney. What was happening?

Neru wasn't violent; she would never attack another patient, much less one three times her size. There was something odd about this patient, though. He was severely overweight with an unpleasant face and stained black dress pants.

Dress pants? That meant he wasn't a patient, he was part of the staff.

Mean, obese staff member...

Miku paled. There was only one staff member at the asylum who fit that description, and he ran the show. He was Dell's boss, Mr. Harris, of whom Dell often complained. How could Neru assault the Bossman?

Mr. Harris looked up from his gurney, rage turning his face beet-red. Neru had been trapped by a circle of patients and nurses come to see what all the kerfuffle was about. She snarled and raked her fingers down Teto's face, eliciting a cry from the poor nurse. Neru had taken an acrobatic flip off the handle, it seemed. But how? She had been just fine a few minutes ago, right before she left for her therapy session.

Miku leaped forward to intervene, but someone beat her to it.

To make the Kodak moment complete, Dell Honne appeared out of nowhere.

*insert page break here okay*

Dell had been filing reports and making copies when he heard the scream. Dell was nonplussed. He worked in a psych ward; he would be bothered if some psycho wasn't screaming during a large portion of the day.

He would have continued had he not recognized that scream. That shriek still haunted his nightmares; it was probably the last noise Neru Akita had made before she lost all of her memories of him, right when the eighteen-wheeler hit the Acura.

"Neru," he breathed, before he took off running.

_Run out of the staff lounge, down the hall, take two rights and a flight of stairs, calm your heartbeat, it's probably nothing it's gotta be nothing, hang a left and... there you are. _

First thing he saw was Harris, laid flat on a gurney as they attempted to stem the gush of blood from his meaty nose. Dell smirked; the guy had totally deserved it. But who was actually crazy enough to deck Harris?

His terrible solution was trapped in a throng of people. She was crying and fighting to get away as one stupid nurse, Tito or whatever her name was, stepped forward to try and calm her down. Bad idea. If Neru could attack Harris, then Teto didn't stand a chance.

His heart lurched as Neru dug her talons into Teto's eye sockets. He saw Hatsune reach out and yank Neru away. No way was he letting Neru claw Hatsune; there really was only one man for the job.

He sprinted towards Neru and grabbed her by the shoulder. She wheeled around to face him, snarling like a mad cat. Her eyes had regained their passionate sparkle.

Steeling himself, Dell yanked Neru into his arms, burying her head in his chest. Her snarls melted into a high, keening sound as she cried into his tie. Dell let out a breath of relief. He had been waiting to hold Neru like this for five years.

Sure, she had attacked two staff members and nearly given him a heart attack, but she would be okay. Everything would be okay. This wasn't regular behavior for Neru; the nurses could patch up Harris's nose, Dell could erase this from her record and balance would be restored. Please be okay please be okay-

Harris's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Is the skittish horse contained, Honne?" he sneered. Dell blanched. Did Harris know about him and Neru? Of course, an idiot could figure it out, judging by their compromising position that the two were quite fond of each other. Did Dell care? Nope.

"Yes, sir, she has calmed," Dell stated. He felt Neru dig her fingers into his ribs. With some hesitation, Dell pried Neru from his body. She looked up at him, fear scrawled across her eyes. Dell felt his face melt into an uncharacteristic smile. You're safe, Neru.

She turned and stumbled towards Harris like a baby bird learning to fly.

Dell loved her, he knew with every cell in his body and every fiber of his being. He loved Neru Akita and nothing would change that and everything would be okay.

He saw Harris smile, too, as Dell's firebrand lurched toward him. _Don't touch her,_ he mentally warned his boss.

As it turns out, he didn't have to.

He saw Harris motion to an attendant, who held up a sleek black handgun.

Everyone's eyes widened.

The next few seconds moved incredibly fast yet agonizingly slow, melting together, somewhat. The attendant, with a face frozen like glass, pointed the gun at its target.

_No_, Dell and Miku mouthed.

A loud bang, and the bullet found a home between Neru's glowing yellow eyes.

The whole room froze as Neru swayed on her feet. She turned back to Dell just before she fell, and he caught every glimpse of her face.

He saw the bloody red bullet-patch in her skull. He saw her eyes, blazing like never before. He saw those old tears, sparkling on her cheeks. Minus the bullet, he recognized that face better than his own because he saw it every time he closed his eyes. The same face Neru had the split second before the eighteen-wheeler sideswept his car. The face that said,_ Dell, save me. _

And then, Neru Akita's body hit the floor.

Dell Honne's world exploded.

Patients and nurses alike were screaming and running around in a panic, attempting to flee the body and the gun. He heard Miku's scream above them all, heard its distinctive high pitch, only instead of running away, she ran right toward Neru, crying for the dead girl to get up.

As for Dell, he was frozen, watching Harris's smug face as he whispered, _I told you, Honne. She was an angry, violent, incurable stain on this establishment. Five years of therapy didn't help, and as I told you myself, your angry little ship will burn. _

Dell's howl pierced walls and ear drums and heaven itself, louder than everything.

It was the final agonized cry of someone who has truly lost everything.


	8. Sober Up and Bury the Empty Cup

It had been six days since Neru's death.

Miku had taken to sitting alone in her room, staring at the ceiling tiles, counting the number of dead crickets caught in the overhead fluorescent light fixtures.

_Four. Four dead crickets in light number one. Four, four, four. _

_Six. Six little dead ones in the light by the window. Six. Six days since Neru had joined those little crickets in death. _

Miku ground her teeth together and squeezed her eyes shut. _No more dead bugs,_ she thought decidedly as she flopped onto her stomach.

Even something as mundane as dead crickets in the room reminded Miku of her. Everything reminded her of Neru. Some things were easier to identify than others: the nasty breakfast quiche served on Tuesdays that Neru always hated, the small room with the bay window where Neru used to teach Miku how to draw. Since the shooting, Miku hadn't gone back there. There were too many ghosts.

And some things were harder to point out. The noticeable absence of Neru's honking laughter that used to bloom and brighten a room. How cold everything was now that Neru was cold and dead as well. Neru was truly like a star. Sure, she was a small and obnoxious burning gas cloud, but that burning of gas exuded warmth and light, two things Miku desperately needed.

They hadn't known each other long, but the two had become friends of necessity. They needed each other. For one to provide stability to the other. Miku brought Neru peace, but Neru brought something even more important. Hope.

Neru was now peaceful enough in death.

But Miku still needed hope from the one place she could never get it.

Miku wanted to die.

It had been six nights. Six long nights spent wandering around in the dark without light. Some people described nights as black, well, Dell described these nights as gray. Several impossible shades of gray, absent of that tiny light in the distance, the little spark of Pandora called 'hope'.

The hateful vodka became Dell's constant companion. He had chosen not to come into work and see Harris's smug horseass face. He chose to sit around and drink himself to a black hole, a region of spacetime where gravity and self-centeredness were so dense they forbade any light from passing through.

He chose to watch movies.

Old Pixar classics, the new releases on Netflix, anything. Something that could immerse him in other people's written and staged troubles instead of allowing his own troubles to haunt him.

So, drunk Dell sat for almost a week, calling in sick to work with love disease, though he refused to acknowledge who had passed this disease to him. The burning golden girl whose name hadn't passed his lips since the day her flame went out.

On one afternoon, as the unwelcome sunlight slashed his retinas, hungover Dell decided to run. Run away to another town, another place, another time, like an angry little brat who had gotten in a fight with his parents. But to do that, he needed to quit his job, pack up his few shitty belongings, and... Say goodbye to someone.

He needed to say goodbye to Hatsune, as much as he didn't want to. But he remembered how betrayed he had felt when the one he had loved left his life so suddenly, like a candle snuffed out. He couldn't live with himself if he just vanished on Hatsune and never came back. That would make three people in her life. That Kagamine asshole, and... Akita had already left, their brains blown out. Dell at least wanted to say goodbye.

He packed up the few pieces of furniture in his apartment into a couple of boxes in the course of three hours. The work helped to clear his head of the hangover.

In time, he was in his car, heading to his old workplace. Dell could have driven there with his eyes closed. He had half a mind to, anyway. Maybe he wouldn't see another car coming. Maybe his little Acura would get hit again. Maybe another eighteen-wheeler would smash into him and send him careening through the window and into the pavement. Maybe it would send him back to that night five years ago. Maybe it would send him to his love, to join her in still peace.

Dell wanted to die.

At dusk, Miku lay in bed, trying to convince sleep to take her away. Her eyes were weary and fatigued; the creak in her bones cried out for rest. But her mind was active as ever. She sat perfectly still while her mind wondered, rewinding over old thoughts.

_Why? Why did that bastard shoot Neru? Why?_

Miku didn't know. Patients had outbursts all the time, but none of them had ever been killed. At least, not that she knew of. Then again, no other patient had ever attacked Harris. Still, the pieces of the puzzle didn't add up.

It was almost like Harris had that man shoot Neru just to make Miku suffer.

Old tears pricked her eyes. She already lost one of the people who gave her balance. Len. She hadn't thought about him in a while. Truthfully, she hadn't thought about her family, either.

But besides Neru, there was one person she thought about quite a bit.

Her old therapist, Mr. Honne.

She knew he must have taken a few days off of work, to deal with grief. Miku knew that he had loved Neru, for whatever reason. She had seen it in his eyes, in the strange way he seemed to steer Neru, with a hand between her shoulder blades, as if she couldn't guide herself when Miku knew Neru was probably the steadiest of them all.

She was snapped back to reality when a harsh hand pounded the door in a crude knock.

Miku clambered to her feet. She really was not looking forward to an encounter with this person who, judging by their knocking method, was rather pissed off.

She opened the door to find none other than Mr. Honne.

It had been a long drive up here. Not necessarily in miles, but in memories. He drove by the gas station so old it still had outdoor bathrooms, by Carlos's Taco Emporium, by intersections and crooked sidewalks that were as familiar to him as his own name.

Every day for the past five years, he had driven by these makeshift landmarks. It was strange how after only six days, he felt like a stranger in his own territory.

When he pulled up to the hospital, he resisted the urge to light a cigarette. Dell needed a smoke to tranquilize him, to make him comfortably numb enough to walk through the lobby where the light of his life had been shot without falling to pieces.

But that wasn't an option. Smoking was strictly prohibited within 200 feet of the hospital.

So Dell steeled himself and walked in, his hands shaking like leaves. His fellow coworkers looked shocked at his arrival, a few offering a tentative 'welcome back'. He shrugged them off and stalked toward his office, planning just to grab his laptop and drop off his letter of resignation with Harris's secretary.

But something stopped him in his tracks.

He liked to think it was Neru, guiding him from the beyond, but that was stupid.

Something compelled him to take a one-eighty and walk to Hatsune's room, ward room 305.

Dell felt a flush creep up his neck. After a week, he would see Hatsune, see the wreck she must have become after the shooting. The thought cheered him somewhat. However bad Dell had been these past few days, no one could throw grieving temper tantrums like Hatsune.

He tried to knock on the door but ended up just slamming his palm on it. Damn coordination; she would get the message.

After a brief pause, the door swung open, and there she was. Hatsune's eyes were wide and awed. Had she really not been expecting him to come back?

The biggest face-splitting grin devoured her face, and in the next second, Dell had an armful of girl.

Dell let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

"You came back." Her statement was muffled as she pressed her face into his shoulder. She seemed oddly... Affectionate.

"And now I'm leaving again," Dell warned.

She looked up at him, dull cyan eyes narrowed.

"I'm leaving this place once and for all. I just wanted to say goodbye."

Dammit. He hadn't meant to be so harsh.

"I'm coming with you," she demanded, stamping her foot like a child.

One look at her set-in-stone expression, and Dell knew he was hopeless. He couldn't take the girl with him, but how could he leave her? Hatsune was his last, only link to -

"There are too many ghosts here. I'll die if I don't escape soon, and I can tell you will too."

Dell scoffed and informed her that she was not as dear to his heart as she seemed to think she was. Hatsune's face twisted into scorn. Any affection she had for Dell was long gone.

"Well fine, Mr. Self-Centered Jackass. If you won't do it for me, do it for yourself. You were intoxicated with her, and now that she's dead, you know as well as I do that you don't want to mourn alone. You want someone else to remember and suffer with you. Grief may be self-centered, but it loves company-"

"Miku."

That shuts her up. Dell has never referred to her by her first name, only Hatsune.

He takes a deep breath. There would be too many repercussions for kidnapping a patient, even if said patient was trying to run away. If Harris found out and informed her parents, the parents would sue, the police would come sniffing around...

Lightbulb.

The last thing Harris wanted was to attract attention, especially the law's attention, to the asylum. Hadn't he had Neru killed for that very purpose? The reason he drugged the docile patients... He was concerned with the ward's image. He didn't want to look bad, he wanted to look like his 'treatments' were working. And if the police came to investigate, they'd find the drugged patients, the abused ones, the low security. They might even find her body.

So, they might lose a patient, but one unaccounted-for Hatsune was worth maintaining the sanctity of the mental hospital.

"Grab your stuff, Hatsune. We're leaving."


	9. Oblivion and Forevermore

After Dell closed the door behind him, Miku pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. She was leaving, really leaving this hellhole.

Dell explained she had twelve minutes to pack up a few belongings and meet him in front of his office. The facility would be under lockdown, every door locked tight until morning, in fifteen minutes. If she didn't show up after twelve minutes, he was leaving without her.

Miku closed her eyes to think. What could she possibly want to bring? It would have to be small, and practical. She didn't own much, only a large assortment of hospital gowns and the standard-issue set of toiletries given to each patient. And she didn't want any of those, anyway. She didn't even want to think about this place after her new beginning in the outside world. There were only two things that had any significance to her during her stay, and one of them was the bad-tempered albino freak busting her out of here. The other was dead, but Miku never wanted to forget her.

She knew she needed something to remind her of Neru, and Dell might appreciate it, too. But what? Neru didn't have much either, only her hospital gowns and -

Miku's eyes shot open.

Neru was an artist. And every artist had a sketchbook.

Miku happened to know that Neru's sketchbook was stashed under her mattress, where no nosy nurse would find it.

Miku shot up from her bed and tiptoed into the hallway. The final stragglers that wandered the hallways after sunset had cleared, and the hall was dark. Neru's room was twenty feet away.

_Please, please, please let her sketchbook still be there,_ was Miku's internal chant; a mantra, of sorts.

The door was unlocked and swung open with a cringe-worthy creak. Miku's bare toes were chilled against the floor as she crept to Neru's old hospital bed. She fought back disgust; they hadn't even stripped the sheets after Neru's death, like once she was dead so was everything else concerned with her. Miku touched the sheets where Neru had slept and swallowed hard.

She rummaged under the scratchy mattress until her fingertips brushed a worn cover. _Jackpot_.

Miku clutched the book to her chest like a lifeline as she cast one more look around the room. It was bare, the closet vacant, no decorations or beeping machines scattered around.

She sighed and blew an awkward kiss to the hospital bed as a final goodbye.

_I'll never forget you, Neru Akita. _

Miku ran from the room as if chased by ghosts.

Dell sat impatiently outside his office. It hadn't taken long to grab his laptop and make his office look as bare and utilitarian as possible. After all, it only contained his desk and laptop, a beaten old chair from his college days, and a dusty filing cabinet that had been obsolete since all of the patient records became computerized.

He spent one last moment looking around the room he had practically lived in for the past five years. The desk was blank, the filing cabinets just so. The carpet was dusty, the walls faded. Kind of like him.

_Good riddance. _

He locked the door for the last time and sat outside in the hallway for Hatsune.

Dell wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing. He was leaving everything he had known for the past five years. He was leaving her, for God's sake. He was leaving Harris and the crazies and crappy breakfast food and hours spent with psychoanalysis. It was practically all he knew. And now it was ending.

But maybe there was a beginning in there, too. A beginning where he could maybe go into research psychology, and do research on brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe even amnesia. Or he could take another career path, such as computer science, which is what his major had been before the accident. Get himself a new apartment, or even, gasp, a house. Make some friends...?

_Okay, let's not go too far with this. _

But this was a new beginning, starting with getting Hatsune out of here. Then they would drive off into the sunset.

He wasn't planning on eloping with her or anything. He didn't even plan on her sticking around for long once she had her freedom. They didn't love each other, didn't even like each other. Yet they were still sharing the first day of the rest of their lives. Once that day was over and Miku had gone back, however, he would be alone.

... No. Not alone. He had her with him now.

_Oh, just man up and say her name. You owe her that much and more._

He had Neru with him. He had her obnoxious attitude, honking laugh, chaste kisses and starry eyes that yelled 'surprise, surprise!' Forevermore. However sappy it sounded.

"Hey, Dell, your eyes were all blank again. Don't space out on me; we have three minutes to escape this joint."

Hatsune was standing over him impatiently. Dell glanced wearily at her and scrambled to his feet. He saw she was holding something - A book? A journal? - to her chest. It was a small notebook, bound in cheap lemon cloth with words scrawled across the cover.

"Art Journal, Property of Neru Akita"

Dell's eyes began to water as Miku opened the book and leafed through the pages, showing him sketches of whales, bugs, Frank Iero, and high-fashion gowns. He saw bits of text, too; anything from sentence fragments and demotivational quotes scribbled in page corners to multiple-page journal entries.

At the back of the book was where he really started to cry.

There was an entire page devoted to drawings of him. One of him slouching in his chair with a clipboard. One that just showed his face cloaked in shadow. Some basic body sketches and attempted cigarettes. At the center of the page was a fully drawn, inked, and penciled portrait of him, flicking a cigarette into the concrete, slouching against a wall, with a faint smirk on his face. His eyes were looking at the viewer, unusually soft and rounded.

_So that's how I looked whenever I saw her. _

Miku gently turned a couple of pages and stopped on one that was filled with images of Miku. These were not as numerous and detailed as the ones of Dell, but they were still just as lovely. They showed Miku's snarl, her grin, her rare laugh.

The pages were arranged in Neru's book as follows:

First was Dell's front and back 'devotion page', then it skipped a page, then Miku's. But Dell saw the skipped page was the most important of all, for it was the glue between Miku and Dell's pages. It had no pictures, only a brief journal entry.

_Dear Journal,_

_This page is the best page of all, even though I hate to pick favorites. Its right between the two devotion pages of two people who are my favorite people in the world. Miku Hatsune, my newfound best friend, and Dell Honne, who is something else entirely._

_I really love them. Miku's sweet and a good listener, but she can be kind of aloof and maybe regal sometimes. When my brain skips a piece of the puzzle she doesn't judge me. She accepts me even though I have brain trauma. She seems to like my art. _

_Dell is my doctor. I sit with him everyday, for therapy and at night I just talk with him. I like the night sessions better because he doesn't have to write notes about my mental problems on that stupid clipboard. We just talk and sometimes I cry and he gets this sad look on his face like he's gonna cry too, even though he wouldn't let anyone see. He acts really rude and abrasive around everyone else, especially Miku. And she's mean and gnarly right back. I wonder why they hate each other?_

_Anyway, they are like my stars, tiny pinpricks of light in a vast void. This place is dark and my eyes can't seem to adjust, but knowing they're there helps. _

_They are stars, if not to themselves then to me. _

_And these stars won't go out. _

_Neru_

After Miku and Dell scanned the page, both of them were crying. In thirty seconds of looking at this book, both of them had their hearts crushed all over again.

Miku finally spoke. "Dell, we need to leave now before the doors lock."

She saw it written plainly on his face that he didn't want to. How could he, leave the memories of his love for something better and brighter?

It may have been dark here, but it was real.

He knew now that this was the place Neru had learned to love him again, even though she had no memories of before and Dell was a broken shell.

"Dell," she snapped. "Come on. We can't give up now. I know how you feel, I truly do. This is where she is, where you knew her best. I did too. But once you leave, do you doubt for one second that she'll follow? Because if you do, then we might as well just stay and this would all have been for nothing." The hitch in her voice betrayed her crying. She was trying so hard to be strong.

There was a long pause, and Dell looked her hard in the eye, took both of her hands in his and said, "This may be the one time you have been right, Hatsune. If we're gonna make it out there, it better not be the last."

He guided her to the exit door, yanked it open, and pushed her outside. _Outside. Miku was outside_.

He closed the door behind him, grabbed her arm, and ran to his Acura. Miku was practically vibrating with excitement. Once they exited the building, there was a short bush-lined sidewalk that led to the vast parking lot. The facility behind them was dark, no lights on at all, though the parking lot was illuminated by the lights on the road that lead from the hospital into the highway. That road lead to freedom.

Her naked feet scraped against the concrete as they ran fifty feet through the parking lot to Dell's car. It was a tiny silver thing, covered in bumps and scrapes. To Miku it was like the chariot of heaven.

Dell swore as he fumbled with the key and eventually unlocked the car. Miku jumped inside, her stomach doing backflips while her bare thighs squeaked on the leather upholstery. They were really escaping, with nothing left to stop them except time.

Dell buckled his seatbelt and started the car. His fingers shook. He was leaving for the last time, leaving his office and the therapy room and Neru's body. He glanced at Hatsune, who was beaming at him like she just won the lottery. He was leaving one dead girl behind to save a living one. But even if he left, the dead girl would always follow them.

And at that piece in time, Dell Honne was absolutely certain that he was doing the right thing.

And at that moment, the doors of the mental ward locked, barring the escapee duo from return.

It had been thirty minutes since the great escape, and Miku already felt transformed. Maybe it was physical changes. Dell had some of the clothes and toiletries belonging to his half-sister Haku that she left in the car when she went with him to the beach last summer, and miraculously they seemed to fit Miku. She had been able to use deodorant, brush her teeth with one of those mini disposable toothbrushes, and pull her teal locks into a messy bun. She had swapped her hospital gown for a lacy black tank top, red short shorts, and a black oversized open-stitch sweater. Miku loved open-stitch sweaters.

Besides her changes in appearance, Miku felt transformed mentally as well. She was more excited than she had ever been, watching the wretched hospital fade behind them in the distance as they drove down the highway, which was vacant at 12:30 at night.

Dell stayed silent the entire trip, save for a slight smirk as he tore his eyes away from Miku changing in the backseat. Not that the girl would have noticed his pervy leer; she was too focused on feeling clean and pretty and normal again for the first time in a month.

Now she sat beside him, staring up at the stars that hadn't quite been blocked out by highway lights. Her face lit up like a little kid as she whispered, "Do you know how long it's been since I've seen the stars, Dell?"

Dell supposed their old hatred was gone, now that they had seen Neru's journal. He knew Neru had loved him in two lives, and that she had loved Miku, and if his only love on this Earth cared for Miku, then by God he could leave his childish grudge. She seemed different too. More innocent now, and she smiled a lot. Maybe it was the rush of escape and the thought of a new future outside of therapy and numbing drugs and permeating chills. Or maybe the knowledge that she had been loved at her worst of times. Maybe both.

Dell divided his gaze between Miku and the road as she stared up at the sky, her mouth parted in a perfect O like a kid at Disney World.

"These stars won't go out," she whispered as old tears made her eyes sparkle. Dell found himself sighing. God, he missed Neru. But there was an unspoken promise there. Dell no longer wanted to die. He couldn't, wouldn't let one of Neru's stars go out. Not after she lost so much.

Miku tore her gaze from the stars to look at him. Her smile was gone; something was up.

"Dell, before our lives begin, I'm afraid something important must take place," she announced, burying her hands in her shirtsleeves.

"Hatsune, are you asking me for ritual sex?" he scoffed.

"Only you would think that, you nasty old creep. But, no. I want you to see something. Make a detour."

"I have no interest in seeing your old McMansion, Miku."

"Not that," she huffed. "I want you to see where Len died."

He looked at her in horror. "Hatsune, that is fucking morbid as hell -"

"No," she interrupted,"I don't want you to see it just because he died there! I want you to see how he died, and why. Please. Just one last thing. I need this, and you do too." Miku was begging?

Well. That settled it.

Dell was really regretting that decision after Miku managed to direct them to the ass-crack of nowhere.

He had driven off the highway, down some little country roads that didn't even have pavement, and past the old train tracks and sugar mill. Now he was parked fifty feet from a cliff, dense pine forest at his back. Admittedly, the view off the cliff was beautiful, but he still didn't get what this had to do with the Kagamine kid's suicide.

"Look at it, Dell," Miku breathed, running her fingers through her hair as she gazed out at the sea. The sliver of beach lay just below the steep cliff, several yards down. From there, the ocean went on for miles. The only source of light was the full moon shining overhead, and those incredibly insignificant stars.

"Len and I used to fly here. You run and jump off the cliff, suspended in the air for the briefest second, the you fall, and the sky and the air whip past your face, and you watch the ocean that makes you feel so small as you fall. Len and I used to fly off this cliff, but Len took off wrong, and

speared himself on these cliffs. He died at the bottom. But it's worth it. So worth it. Closest thing to actual flight I ever experienced."

She looked at him expectantly, eyebrows raised to ask a silent question. _Fly with me_?

Dell tried to picture it. Pushing off this cliff, wind whipping his hair into a frenzy and roaring in your ears, heart thumping like a rabbits, tears stinging in his eyes as he feels so weightless, so free. And the moon sparkles on the waves and it's so goddamn beautiful. Beautiful like Miku's rage and Neru's tears and like nothing else he's ever seen.

To answer Miku's question, he took her slender hand in his calloused one and nodded.

As one, the duo took a few steps back, facing the cliff. Miku closed her eyes and began the old countdown she and Len used to use, counting from one to ten instead of ten to one, using each second to review the past month of her life, the most heartbreaking and fire-starting

month of her entire life.

One. Len flies and dies. She is checked into that stupid hospital.

Two. She spills her guts to the doctor and lets long-buried memories resurface.

Three. She meets Dell Honne, who is a man that cannot be described with words.

Four. Dell shows her a bit of his pain, and by doing so becomes her biggest emotional catalyst.

Five. She meets Neru, that wonderful, terrible girl that managed to change her future with a journal and a wink.

Six. This is when Miku realizes that Dell and Neru must have some kind of relationship. Dell is more emotional and passionate than usual, and usually comes to work hungover.

Seven. Neru is killed and her two bright stars want to snuff themselves out.

Eight. She and Dell grieve, in their own ways.

Nine. She escapes her prison, both physical and mental, and takes the most meaningful person in her life to the most meaningful place.

Ten.

Miku and Dell share one last glance before running towards the cliff and the ocean and towards life and death.

Together, they jump into oblivion.


End file.
